


Human Touch

by vintagewoe



Category: The Good Place (TV)
Genre: Angst, Comedy, Eventual Romance, F/M, Fluff, Romance, Romantic Comedy, Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-29
Updated: 2018-08-24
Packaged: 2019-06-18 08:20:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15481578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vintagewoe/pseuds/vintagewoe
Summary: All of Michael's reboots have failed due to one mistake; he's been working alone. With Eleanor's help, maybe he could trick the humans and his boss all at once.





	1. Leeches

Eleanor trudged through the mud, stomping and scraping her shoes across every hard surface she could find. She balled her tiny fists around her hair to wring it out, but it was useless; her whole body was soaked in lake water.  


“How the fork does the good place have _leeches _!?” She screeched. Chidi looked around aimlessly, desperately trying to make sense of the situation. While it’s true that, for humans, leeches are unpleasant, he had to assume Michael had a reason for putting them there. He decided after pulling one off his neck, however, that there was at least no reason for leeches to be anywhere near him.  
__

__“Maybe Michael knew we were sick somehow and wanted to use the leeches to clean out our blood?” Chidi shuddered. “No, we’re dead. I don’t even think we have blood. Maybe they saved lives so they got into the good place too? That seems unlikely but it’s possible.”  
_ _

__“Chidi, they’re motherforking _leeches _! They’re not puppies or kittens or sloths; why they put gross, blood-sucking bugs in the lake? Ugh, now I really wish I had a sloth,” Eleanor whined. Chidi frowned at her.__ __

__

___“Actually, leeches aren’t bugs. They’re animals and related to worms, though not direc—”_ _ _

___“Shut up, Chidi. I don’t care what they are. I care why they’re here.” The pair walked past Yogurt Horizons shop, but before they could turn right at Yogurt Yoghurt Yogurté, Eleanor stopped short._ _ _

___“Is everything okay, Eleanor?” Chidi asked. She resisted the urge to yell back at him._ _ _

___“Everything is great. You go back to the house; I’m gonna go talk to Michael about the leeches.”_ _ _

___“Do you want me to come with you?” He asked, and her face softened. She just couldn’t find it in her to be too mad at the little nerd. Besides, she thought, he hadn’t done anything wrong. It was Michael’s problem._ _ _

____“No, that’s okay. Go dry off and read Kierkegaard or something.” Chidi gave her a little half smile and went on his way. Eleanor turned left past Let’s All Eat Yogurt—towards Michael’s office—and reminded herself to ask why the good place had so much yogurt.  
  
\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
  


___Michael sat in his office with his feet up on his desk and a tape recorder in his hands. “Attempt 761,” he started. “Day 37: we’re back to frozen yogurt, people! I don’t know why I ever tried to switch that around. Eleanor and Chris are getting along great, but he hasn’t given her a chance to confide in him about her discomfort. She found Chidi, of course, and he’s been teaching her ethics for a week now.” Michael grimaced. No matter how hard he tried to keep them apart, they found each other in every reboot. He didn’t know why their relationship bothered him, but he had convinced himself that it was the main reason the trials kept failing._ _ _

___“Tahani likes Tomas well enough, but his, uh, humble ways keep putting a wrench in all of her event planning. Jason wants to befriend his soulmate, Lucy, but she is always out trying to better the neighborhood.” Before he could continue, there was an aggressive knock at his door. “Just one second!” Michael put the tape recorder in his desk, took a deep sigh, and prepared himself to play nice with whatever human was outside. “Come in!”_ _ _

___Eleanor stepped into the neutral office and did her best to give off a good person aura. She wanted to be mad—well, she was mad, but she wanted to show it. But she knew that a real good person wouldn’t take it out on the man that was only trying to help. For fork's sake, he was basically an angel, yet here she was to berate him about his first project._ _ _

___“Eleanor!” Michael beamed down at her. She knew that she was his favorite in the neighborhood, and though she had often used that to her advantage, she was really trying to become a better person. “What brings you here? And why are you drenched? I didn’t think that I scheduled it to rain today.” Michael was lying, of course. He knew about Eleanor and Chidi’s little boat trip and had seen to it personally that it went awry. It was too happy and too romantic for his tastes._ _ _

___“We need to talk,” Eleanor started, very aware of her tone. She couldn’t let herself get too mad. Michael gestured towards her usual seat in front of his desk, and the two sank into their comfortable positions while Eleanor recounted her story of tipping canoes and leeches in the lake. After she was finished, Michael put on a frown._ _ _

___“I’m so sorry, Eleanor; I really am. I hadn’t thought that any of the humans here would have any interest in swimming at the lake. None of you had done so during your lifetimes.” He paused, thinking of a further excuse. “I just happen to have an affinity for the common leech. They’re such cute little creatures, aren’t they?” A brief glimmer sparkled through his eyes so quickly that Eleanor was sure she had to have imagined it. He had almost looked evil for a second. She quickly shook that idea out of her head. Michael was only there to help them._ _ _

___“No, they’re not cute,” she replied. “They’re slimy and selfish and ugly.”_ _ _

___“Well, so are humans,” Michael muttered to himself._ _ _

___“What was that?”_ _ _

___“Oh, nothing, Eleanor. What should we do about this little leech problem?” He asked, silently admonishing himself for the brief slip-up. Eleanor sat up straighter._ _ _

___“What do you mean?” She asked._ _ _

___“What should I do with them?” Michael feigned innocence. “Should I kill them? Or should I make a new lake that is designated just for leeches? Or should I just put up a sign of some kind?” Eleanor was horrified._ _ _

___“You mean they’re alive?”_ _ _

___“I wouldn’t say alive. They’re not living creatures like the ones on Earth. But they can feel pain and sadness like you can here.” Michael kept himself from grinning. It was too easy to torment humans by putting something’s metaphorical life in their hands. The leeches couldn’t feel anything—they were essentially simulations programmed to bother them—but she didn’t need to know that._ _ _

___“Why would you make them feel pain? Why would you let us feel pain? That’s just cruel.” All too late, Michael recognized the flicker of realization hit her face. Eleanor gasped. “This is the bad place.” He didn’t answer. “You ash-hole! No wonder I can’t say ash-hole. You know that I’m trying to say _ash-hole _and not ash-hole, right? I can’t believe I trusted you!”___ _ _

___“I can’t believe I failed again.” Michael looked defeated, almost heartbroken. Eleanor almost had the urge to comfort him._ _ _

___“What do you mean again?” she asked. Michael sighed and opened his desk drawer, pointing towards the hundreds of cassette tapes. “How many times?”_ _ _

___“Over 700,” he answered, scowling. “You always manage to figure it out. It’s been one of the others on a rare occasion, but you get there eventually.”_ _ _

___“What do you mean by others?” Eleanor was aware that she was being redundant and quiet, but she couldn’t help it. She thought that she should be more shocked, but a part of her knew that this just confirmed a suspicion that had been in the back of her mind all along. She had known something wasn’t right._ _ _

___“Oh, the only other humans here are Tahani, Jason—sorry, Jianyu—and Chidi. And before you ask, yes you all deserve to be here. No, none of you deserve a medium place. You’ve asked me every question already in one of the reboots.” He told her everything: from the first attempt to the more recent failures. He even explained the recent unrest from Vicky and the other demons. Michael knew that he didn’t need to explain, but he hated resetting her memory without some sort of closure. After he was finished, Eleanor sank down into her chair._ _ _

___“Okay,” Eleanor concluded. Michael was boggled. She’d never just accepted the reality of her situation before._ _ _

___“Okay?” He questioned._ _ _

___“Yeah, dude. I get it. What should we do about this?” Her words echoed the ones that he had spoken earlier. As if fake leeches and his scheme could be even remotely compared. With the snap of his fingers, the leeches would go away, but the latter just seemed destined to repeat itself. Noticing his bewildered expression, Eleanor continued. “Clearly, I’m either too smart or you suck at this on your own. There has to be a better way to do this—one where I don’t get tortured and you don’t fail so hard.”_ _ _

___“Are you trying to insinuate that a human could possibly be better at torture than I am?” He asked, mildly offended. Eleanor grinned._ _ _

___“No, not torture: lying. We’re gonna fake it.” Michael grimaced, but considered his options._ _ _

___“That sounds disappointing,” he told her, and Eleanor laughed. “What would we do instead?”_ _ _

___“I have some ideas.”_ _ _


	2. The Deal

After some time going through Eleanor’s ideas, Michael was at a loss for words. Her plan was effective, of course, but it removed so many of the fun elements. They would bother the other humans just enough to make it look passable as torture, but they’d exaggerate the results so that they weren’t suffering any more than they had alive. It would at least help Michael save face in front of Vicky and the others.  
  
“This could work, but it seems…disappointing,” he told her. Eleanor pouted and pretended to wipe away tears from her eyes.  
  
“That’s so sad. Janet, play Despacito.” Before she could clarify that she was making a joke, Janet appeared with her usual tone.  
  
“I have 280 tracks on file matching ‘Despacito’. Is there one you had in mind?” She asked politely. Eleanor groaned.  
  
“No, dude! Aren’t you the whole internet or something? Shouldn’t you understand the reference?”  
  
“I am not the internet,” Janet replied, and Eleanor groaned again.  
  
“We’re okay; thank you, Janet.” Michael dismissed her, suppressing a laugh. He knew that Janet was capable of absorbing popular culture, but he also assumed that it would be far more annoying if she didn’t. Once he was sure that Janet was gone, he turned back to the blonde human sitting at his desk. She looked a little frustrated but otherwise inscrutable. “What do you get out of this, Eleanor?” The corners of her mouth tilted up into a smirk, and Michael thought to himself that it almost would have been attractive—if he were into that sort of thing. His kind didn’t experience attraction; he assumed that after almost 800 tries, the humans were just wearing off on him a little. Eleanor’s voice broke him quickly out of that train of thought.  
  
“Well, duh! I get to not be tortured, which is obviously a bonus,” she explained. “Plus, I’m helping out the others by making their existence just a little bit easier.” Her smirk grew into a smile, one that would almost seem genuine if you didn’t know better.  
  
“You know that this is only temporary, right? Eventually, my boss will put an end to this and take all of you to the real bad place. Unless…” His voice tapered off.  
  
“Unless?” Eleanor repeated warily. She had a hard enough time trusting people back on Earth, and now she was expected to get into bed with a demon. Well, metaphorically. Or maybe literally, she thought to herself. He was pretty hot for a demon wearing an old dude for clothes.  
  
“Unless I can get you into the real good place.” Michael saw the shocked expression on her face and held up a hand to keep her from interrupting. “I might be able to pitch your plan to protect the humans to the judge. If I exaggerate the philanthropy of your actions and chose my words carefully, I’m almost positive that I could get us both in.” Eleanor laughed.  
  
“You’re going to get into the good place? You’re a demon that has been torturing us!” She taunted. “And what about the others? You’re just going to leave them to the bad place?” Michael could not hide the grimace on his face but chose to ignore her comment about him.  
  
“I can try to help, but nothing that they’ve really done would warrant entry upwards.” Eleanor glared at him, and the two locked eyes for a moment. They both felt an almost magnetic pull—one of hatred, respect, and all feelings in between. Michael sighed and shook his head. “I don’t care what happens to the other three, but if it means so much to you, I’ll do what I can. You’ll have to find ways to help them improve their character without revealing the truth.” Eleanor’s smile came back, and he knew that this time, it was genuine. The two stood almost simultaneously, and she stuck her hand out towards him.  
  
“Let’s get this show on the road, dude.” Michael reached out to grip her small hand and sighed once again.  
  
“I can’t believe it’s come to this. You’ve thwarted my every plan, and now we’re partners in all of this.”  
  
“A demon and an Arizona dirtbag? It’s a match made in heaven.” Michael frowned, and she winked. “Okay, bad phrasing, but don’t sweat it. Your plan was okay; it just needed a human touch to make it great.” She pulled his hand down into a shake to settle on their deal and then stepped back.  
  
“Are you ready?” He asked her. She closed her eyes briefly but nodded.  
  
“Why wouldn’t I be?” Eleanor grinned, and Michael snapped his fingers.


	3. Good/Bad Place Radio

“Welcome back to the Good/Bad Place radio, benches! I’m your host, Eleanor, and we’re on Day 186 of Attempt 762, AKA the first good attempt. In my humble opinion, things are going great.” Eleanor sat alone in Michael’s office, toying with his tape recorder. He was out giving fake reports to the demons, so she decided to make one of her own. “I know that Michael usually does, like a whole summary in these things, but we both know that’s not what you wanna hear. Let’s just stick to updates, okay? Great! So, Tahani thinks her afterlife is great, but she’s real lonely. She throws a party every week, but only the most annoying residents show up. Her soulmate is some short dude—I can’t remember his name—and he’s always out with Jason’s soulmate doing charity around the neighborhood. They both hate it, but Jason at least had Janet set up his ‘Man Hole’ to stay entertained.”  
  
“I haven’t even really done anything to Chidi, but he manages to stress himself out every day without my help. If anything, I’ve been using him to torture Michael. We have him teaching a volunteer ethics class to the community, and I make Michael go every week. It’s great.” Eleanor put her feet up on his desk and smirked at the thought of it all. In this reboot, he posed as her soulmate. It helped her keep an eye on him as well as gave them time to plan things. She’d never admit it to him, but she was growing a soft spot for the dorky demon. To her surprise, he’d started putting genuine effort into the ethics lessons; despite all his talk, he was much more interested in experiencing human life than ruining it.  
  
“The other demons think we’re miserable, and while I’m certainly not, the others are, at worst, a little inconvenienced. Oh, that reminds me: I want to ask Michael if we can give Tahani an amazing razor that makes her giraffe legs silky smooth, but also gives her a small cut underneath her knee or something. That’s the worst.” Before she could continue, Eleanor heard a door slam as Michael charged in the room. He had the same look on his face that he did whenever Vicky interrupted him or Jason tried to speak at a public event: furious. She threw the tape recorder back into the drawer, but he’d already seen.  
  
“Eleanor,” he started. “What have I told you about touching my things?” Michael walked over and pushed her legs off the desk. She frowned.  
  
“We’re basically married, Mikey-boy; doesn’t that mean what’s yours is mine?” Eleanor asked, but the false innocence in her voice only made the man scowl.  
  
“We’re not married, and what’s mine is mine,” he replied. She scooted out of his chair, which he promptly fell in to—leaving her to return to her usual seat across from him. The room almost vibrated with his rage while he shuffled through various papers on his desk.  
  
“Okay, so you know the whole uptight, angry thing kinda turns me on, but it seems a little out of nowhere,” she said, and her voice softened. “Wanna tell me what’s going on with you?” Michael sighed and ran a hand through his grey hair, looking at the human in front of him. She was a pesky pain in the neck, but he had also begun to think of her as his only friend. His anger dwindled, and he calmed himself before speaking to her.  
  
“I’m sorry, Eleanor. Vicky and the others are growing restless. They believe that the humans are miserable, but they don’t feel that they’re getting enough to do.” Eleanor was a little shocked that Michael actually apologized to her just for raising his voice, but she wasn’t going to let it show.  
  
“Ugh, she’s already pretending to be Jason’s soulmate. What else could the bench want?” She asked.  
  
“Well, for one, she’d really like to bone him.” Eleanor, who had made the unfortunate mistake of drinking from her bottle then, did a sitcom-like spit take.  
  
“She wants to _what _him?” She almost shouted. Michael laughed, somewhat forgetting that Eleanor didn’t understand their old positions.__  
  
“You know, bone him! If she really had it her way, Vicky would take all the bones out his body, fashion them into a weapon of her choice, and use it to torture him with. I’m sure all of the others would love to bone you all.” Eleanor shuddered and glared at him.  
  
“Okay, that’s not what that word means for humans.” Michael grinned, so she continued. “But I’m guessing you already knew that.” He let out a childish chuckle, stood up from his chair, and gestured to the door. Eleanor got up to follow him without even a thought, and the two headed out of his office.  
  
“I couldn’t resist. Let’s go home and discuss what we’re going to do about my employees.” Eleanor wasn’t sure why, but her heart beat faster when he called their little residence _home _. She shook her head a little bit and nudged Michael playfully.__  
  
“Okay, but for that joke, you get to take down all the clowns tonight.” He chuckled again at her expense, but nodded. The pair walked to their house in moderate silence, never sure that they weren’t being watched. The demons, as Eleanor liked to call them, were heavily skeptical when Michael had announced that he would be posing as Eleanor’s soulmate. He was able to convince the majority that he could torture her more easily from the inside, but the more intelligent few still doubted him. Any one slip-up could get the humans sent to their torment and he sent to his retirement. They were at a very precarious position in this experiment, but Michael found that he cared more for what happened to Eleanor than himself. He didn’t often let himself dwell on that, though.  
  
Once safely inside the house, Eleanor excused herself to change into more comfortable clothing, and Michael seated himself in the living room. A thought occurred to him, and he made a platter of shrimp cocktail appear on the table. He knew that she didn’t need to eat, but that a little shellfish always cheered her up no matter how often she had it. It was suspiciously human how much he had changed in such little time and how much emotion he had started to feel. Michael had begun to care for them all, however; none of them came close to Eleanor. If the time came where he needed to escape, he knew that he could take Eleanor and leave the others behind with only a little difficulty. He had progressed enough during Chidi’s lessons to know that it wasn’t entirely noble to do so, but he could justify the act if it meant getting her out of there. Luckily for him, Eleanor returned before his thoughts could run further away.  
  
“Mikey! You sure know how to please a lady,” she admired, patting him once on the back. She sat close to him and prepared herself a plate of shrimp. “So, what are we gonna do about these punk-ash demons?”


	4. The Trollop Problem

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ya'll, I apologize in advance if I forked up some of the writing. I'm working on another multi-chapter fic that's written in second person present tense, and since this is in the third person past tense, it's been throwing me off a little bit to alternate. Otherwise, I hope you enjoy the chapter!

Michael, to put it lightly, did not approve of their plan in any way. He found the idea to be hastily chosen and overall lacking in finesse. Though he would rather go with something a little more tactical, he and Eleanor agreed that they were running out of time. Using Janet’s abilities to change Eleanor’s appearance slightly, she posed as Diana—his right-hand demon of the neighborhood. Michael could only hope that his boss did not care enough about the humans to recognize her. The pair were on the train to visit Shawn. They needed to acquire two upper management pins, sneak their way to the portal, and convince the judge to let them into the good place.  
  
“This is going to end horribly,” he announced suddenly. Eleanor rolled her eyes.  
  
“Chill out, man,” she replied, throwing a ball of paper at his face. Michael sighed and considered her new appearance. Her hair was a dark shade of red, she dressed rather provocatively, and her face was plastered in some sort of ghastly makeup. He would never admit it to her, but Michael had become fascinated with her usual appearance. Her looks were soft despite the rough edges of her personality, and he let himself grow comfortable with it. Janet had designed this look specifically to have Eleanor blend in with the racy brutes of the bad place, but he found it to be excessive.  
  
“How am I supposed to ‘chill out’ when you’re about to confront the metaphorical devil looking like a cheap trollop?!” Michael almost shouted. He didn’t mean to yell at her, but he his nerves increased by the minute.  
  
“Okay, first: never do air quotes ever again,” Eleanor responds. “It’s tacky. Second, you know you’d love to hit this no matter how ‘cheap’ I look,” she mimicked his air quotes. Rather than unpack that statement, Michael sighs. Eleanor takes his hands into “Look, dude; it’s gonna be fine. I’m a really good liar, and you’re…okay at it.” Oddly enough, her words brought him comfort, so he conceded for the time being. She laid her head on her arm and closed her eyes for the rest of the trip.  
  
They arrived at the station and headed towards Shawn’s office. He was expecting them, so they were let in without issue. Despite her outward confidence, Michael could feel the anxious energy radiating off her small figure. He placed his hand on her shoulder, and she looked up into his eyes. For a moment, they just stared at each other, wordlessly conveying their determination to protect the other. Michael wasn’t sure when he had begun caring about the human—he hadn’t even thought it possible—but at some point, everything changed for him. For a time, he had pretended otherwise, pretended that he was using her assistance to save himself. He admitted it to himself the night they made this plan; Eleanor was willing to walk directly into the fire with him, even though it could get her tortured for the rest of her existence. Her trust in him was unconditional and completely baseless, which only drove him to make himself worthy of it.  
  
Michael is shaken out of his thoughts suddenly when Shawn opened his door. The two pulled away from each other hurriedly, and though Shawn raised an eyebrow, he said nothing. He directed them into his office, and the pair sat side by side.  
  
“To what do I owe this visit, Michael and…” He gestured towards Eleanor.  
  
“Diana,” she maintained, holding out her hand. Shawn shook it suspiciously, so she continued. “We’ve met, a few times actually, but I’m a bit lower level, so I don’t think you remember.” Michael was again shocked by Eleanor’s immediate ability to warp the truth. All nerve from before vanished, leaving only the cool and collected woman she’d been on Earth. Her comment seemed to establish her as one of his employees.  
  
“Ah, yes. To what do I owe this visit, Michael and Diana?” Shawn corrected, leaning back into his chair.  
  
“As I’m sure you’ve noticed, Project 12358W has been very successful lately,” Michael began, speaking each word as previously rehearsed. “It is…somewhat humiliating to admit, but a large part of that can only be credited to the creature sitting in front of you. Diana has come up with ideas that I was unable to think of, let alone consider; for example, Chidi’s community ethics course and Tahani’s weekly festivities.”  
  
“I’m disappointed in you for not bringing this to me earlier, Michael; however, I am curious as to what prompted this confession,” Shawn interrogated. His voice was monotone and impossible to read.  
  
“Despite her affinity for torture, my protégé has higher aspirations. Even more than carrying out the service, she is consumed by her desire to evaluate humans and adjudicate them herself. I would like to request permission to bring Diana before the Judge and argue for some kind of internship, if you will.” At this, Shawn’s eyes narrowed.  
  
“Why would I be interested in losing an employee that, as far as you have explained, could be one of the best creative minds we possess?” He questioned, and though she’d been quiet for a while, Eleanor responded.  
  
“Actually, if you’ll mind the interruption, Michael; I have some ideas.” Though they had planned none of rhetoric in advance, Eleanor launched into a speech clarifying her supposed plans for becoming a Judge. She argued that the bad place had lost a lot of its pull over the last millennia or so, and that a true neutral rising from its depths would soften its reputation as solely brutish. Eleanor also threw in the fact that, if she had any influence over the Judge, she could sway a few more entertaining people in their direction. Shawn appeared to genuinely consider her argument.  
  
“Diana, would you mind stepping out for a moment? Bad Janet will get you a hot cup of anti-matter while you wait,” he asked. On command, Bad Janet appeared.  
  
“What is it that you people want? Anti-matter?” She groaned. “Will that be regular or flavored?”  
  
“Oh, just the regular will be fine,” Eleanor says, though the human had no intention of actually drinking it. Bad Janet disappeared, then reappeared almost instantly with a mug that she handed to Eleanor.  
  
“It’s lukewarm, French Vanilla antimatter. That’s what you wanted, right?” She smirked.  
  
“Yes, exactly. Thank you, Bad Janet.” The assistant scoffed, but poofed out of the office again. Eleanor politely excused herself and exited to the waiting room outside. Shawn addressed Michael as soon as the door was closed.  
  
“Explain to me why you would confess to poor performance just to appease some bright-eyed inferior.” His voice was cold, and Michael understood that he would need to be at least partially authentic to come across as credible.  
  
“I know this is unusual for our kind, but if I’m being honest, I’m interested in Diana,” he admitted. The man across from him did not seem to understand.  
  
“Interested in taking her meat-suit for your own? Interested in her ideas for torture? Interested in her plan to become a bad place judge? I don’t understand what you mean, Michael.”  
  
“I’m interested in her romantically,” Michael added. Shawn’s eyebrow returned to its raised position.  
  
“I see,” he said. “That is very unusual indeed.”

  
  


Eleanor had no idea what to do with herself while in the waiting room. She had already poured her cup of anti-matter into a houseplant, and she wasn’t sure if she should sit or anxiously pace around. She preferred to anxiously pace around. Even if she and Michael managed to trick Shawn into letting them through the portal, they would still have to convince the Judge to let them into the good place. Since Michael knew nothing about her other than her existence, they had no concept of what they needed to do to plead their cases. The stress of it all was almost enough to make her sick, and Eleanor thought for a moment that she finally understood how Chidi felt all the time.  
  
If they weren’t successful, Eleanor would be tortured for the rest of time. While it sounded terrible, she imagined that she would adapt faster than the others. What shocked her the most was that she was far more concerned for Michael than herself. Torture was, at the very least, straightforward, but retirement seemed both excruciating and complicated. Though she’d never admit it to him, she’d recently come to terms with the fact that she had feelings for him. He had changed since they began working as partners, and she admired his strength and clandestine kindness. Eleanor knew it would never work, but she accepted the reality that her unrequited emotions were valid. She thought to herself that even if Shawn didn’t believe them, she would find a way to save Michael. Not long after, both demons exited his office.  
  
“Diana, I have approved your request. Michael will escort you through our portal to the Judge. When either he or the both of you return, I will evaluate his punishment for failing at his experiment without help,” Shawn stated. Michael nodded, and the trio made their way towards the portal. They passed various corporate-looking rooms, and Eleanor wondered how something so mundane could exist in what was essentially hell. Once they had arrived at their destination, the Judge handed them each a pin, and the pair fasted them to their shirt collars. Just as they began to enter the portal, Shawn spoke again.  
  
“Good luck Michael, Eleanor.” The creature grinned, baring his teeth, and they get pulled into darkness.


End file.
